To the south-east of Bloomsbury Square, surrounded by a nest of narrow alleys between it
and Holborn, is Red Lion Square, described by
Northouck as a "neat, small square, much longer
than it is broad," and having "convenient" streets
entering it on three sides, with foot-passages at the
corners. It had at that time (1786) not only in the
centre a plain obelisk, but a stone watch-house at
each corner, all of which have long been swept away.
Although respectable, the square has a very dull
appearance, which is thus whimsically portrayed
by the author of "Critical Observations on the
Buildings, &c, of London," published about the
middle of the last century:—"I never go into it
without thinking of my latter end. The rough sod
that 'heaves with many a mouldering heap,' the
dreary length of its sides, with the four watchhouses like so many family vaults at the corners,
and the naked obelisk that springs from amid the
rank grass, like the sad monument of a disconsolate
widow for the loss of her first husband, all form
together a memento mori, more powerful to me
than a death's head and cross marrow-bones; and
were but a parson's bull to be seen bellowing at the
gate, the idea of a country churchyard, in my mind,
would be complete."

Hatton, in 1708, describes it as "a pleasant
square of good buildings, between High Holborn
south and the fields north;" and Pennant, writing
in 1790, says that in the centre was "a clumsy
obelisk, lately vanished."

The "Red Lyon" Inn was in olden times the
most important hostelry in Holborn, and accordingly had the honour of giving its name to Red
Lion Street and to the adjoining square. If we
may draw an inference from the entries in the
register of St. Andrew's, Holborn, the inn had
behind it a fine row of trees, for we find notices of
foundlings being exposed under the "Red Lion
Elmes in Holborn." The "Red Lyon" is mentioned in the following "puff" of a quack doctor,
at the beginning of the last century:—"Cornelius
Tilbury, sworn Chirurgeon in ordinary to K. Charles
II., to his late Sovereign K. William, as also to her
present Majesty Queen Anne," gives his address
as "at the Blue Flower Pot, in Great Lincoln's Inn
Fields, at Holbourn Row (where you see at night a
light over the door). …And for the convenience
of those that desire privacy, they may come through
the Red Lyon Inn, in Holbourn, between the two
Turnstiles, which is directly against my back door,
where you will see the sign of the Blue Ball hang
over the door. I dispose of my famous Orvietan,
either liquid or in powder, what quantity or price
you please. … This is that Orvietan that expelled that vast quantity of poyson I took before
K. Charles II., for which his Majesty presented me
with a gold medal and chain."

The story that some of the regicides were
buried in Red Lion Square has been extensively
believed; it is told by Mr. Peter Cunningham, with
a little variety, as follows:—"The bodies of Oliver
Cromwell, Ireton, and Bradshaw were carried from
Westminster Abbey to the Red Lion Inn, in
Holborn, and the next day dragged on sledges
thence to Tyburn." In support of this story he
quotes Wood's "Athenæ Oxonienses," and the
additional MSS. in the British Museum, where
those who are curious in such matters will find the
narrative.

On the fate of Cromwell's head we have already
quoted at some length in the preceding volume. (fn. 1)
It is the opinion of a writer in the Times, that
if the body of Cromwell was removed from the
Abbey and buried in Red Lion Square, it is not
probable that another embalmed body could have
been procured for the purpose of being sent as
its substitute to Tyburn, as has been suggested.

THE OLD "BLACK BULL INN," GRAY'S INN LANE.

Pennant, as we have observed, speaks of the
"clumsy obelisk" in Red Lion Square, and mentions that it was inscribed with the following
lines:—"Obtusum Obtusioris Ingenii Monumentum. Quid me respicis, viator? Vade."
"Could this quaint inscription," asks Mr. Jesse, in
his "London," "have any hidden reference to the
bones of Cromwell lying beneath it? We think not;
but they are meant to mystify; and what, therefore,
do they mean?" Mr. Jesse is inclined, however, in
spite of his scepticism as to the inscription, to agree
with those who believe in the tradition that the
body of Cromwell was buried beneath this obelisk,
and that upon this spot not improbably moulder,
not only the bones of the great Protector, but also
those of Ireton and Bradshaw, whose remains
were disinterred at the same time from Westminster Abbey, and exposed on the same gallows.
He strengthens this supposition by observing that
the contemporary accounts of the last resting-place
of these remarkable men simply inform us, that on
the anniversary of the death of Charles I. their
bodies were borne on sledges to Tyburn, and after
hanging till sunset they were cut down and beheaded; that their bodies were then flung into a
hole at the foot of the gallows, and their heads
fixed upon poles on the roof of Westminster Hall.
"From the word Tyburn being so distinctly laid
down," Mr. Jesse adds, "it has usually been taken
for granted that it was intended to designate the
well-known place for executing criminals, nearly at
the north end of Park Lane, or, as it was anciently
styled, Tyburn Lane. However, when we read
of a criminal in old times having been executed
at Tyburn, we are not necessarily to presume that
it was at this particular spot, the gallows having
unquestionably been shifted at times from place to
place, and the word Tyburn having been given
indiscriminately, for the time being, to each spot.
For instance, sixty years before the death of Crom
well the gallows were frequently erected at the
extremity of St. Giles's parish, near the end of the
present Tottenham Court Road; while for nearly
two centuries the Holborn end of Fetter Lane,
within a short distance of Red Lion Square, was
no less frequently the place of execution. Indeed,
in 1643, only a few years before the exhumation
and gibbeting of Cromwell, we find Nathaniel
Tomkins executed at this spot for his share in
Waller's plot to surprise the City. In addition,
however, to these surmises is the curious fact of
the bodies of Cromwell and Ireton having been
brought in carts, on the night previous to their
exposure on the gibbet, to the Red Lion Inn,
Holborn, from which Red Lion Square derives its
name, where they rested during the night. In
taking this step, it is surely not unreasonable to
presume that the Government had in view the
selection of a house in the immediate vicinity of
the scaffold, in order that the bodies might be in
readiness for the disgusting exhibition of the following morning. Supposing this to have been the
case, the place of their exposure and interment
could scarcely have been the end of Tyburn Lane,
inasmuch as the distance thither from Westminster
is actually shorter than the distance from Westminster to Red Lion Square. The object of the
Government could hardly have been to create a
sensation by parading the bodies along a populous
thoroughfare, inasmuch as the ground between St.
Giles's Pound and Tyburn, a distance of a mile
and a half, was at this period almost entirely open
country."

RED LION SQUARE IN 1800.

This story of the disposal of Cromwell's body, if
true, negatives the well-known lines of Dryden:—

"His ashes in a peaceful urn shall rest."

In Rede's "Anecdotes and Biography," published just before the close of the last century, it
is stated that the obelisk was thought to be a
memorial erected to Cromwell by an apothecary
who was attached to his principles, and had so
much influence in the building of the square as
to manage the marking out of the ground, thus
further contriving to pay this tribute to his favourite.
Curiously enough, it has been discovered that an
apothecary named Ebenezer Heathcote, who had
married the daughter of one of Ireton's sub-commissaries, was living at the King's-gate, Holborn,
soon after the Restoration.

Leigh Hunt has left a curious reminiscence of
an "old lady of quality," who lived in this square,
"a quarter in different estimation from what it is
now." She astounded him one day by letting her
false teeth slip out, and clapping them in again.
It was at her house, he adds, that his father one
evening met John Wilkes. Not knowing him by
sight, and happening to fall into conversation with
him, while the latter sat looking down, he said
something in Wilkes's disparagement, on which the
jovial demagogue looked up in his face, and burst
out laughing. In this square lived, in the last
century, Lord Raymond, the Chief Justice of the
Court of King's Bench. Here too, says Mr. Peter
Cunningham, lived, and here, in 1786, died the
benevolent Mr. Jonas Hanway, the eccentric traveller, remarkable as "the first person who ventured
to walk in the streets of London with an umbrella
over his head." We have already spoken at some
length of this celebrity in dealing with Hanway
Street. (fn. 2) The principal rooms in Hanway's house
were decorated with paintings and emblematical
devices, "in a style," says his biographer, "peculiar
to himself. I found," he used to say, when
speaking of these ornaments, "that my countrymen
and women were not au fait in the art of conversation; and that instead of recurring to their cards
when the discourse began to flag, the minutes
between the time of assembling and the placing of
the card-tables are spent in an irksome suspense.
To relieve this vacuum in social intercourse, and
prevent cards from engrossing the whole of my
visitors' minds, I have presented them with objects
the most attractive I could imagine; and when
that fails there are the cards." At No. 32 in this
square, the house at the corner of North Street,
lived, for many years in the present century, Sharon
Turner, the author of "The Sacred History of the
World." He was a solicitor in practice, as well
as an historian; he died here in 1847. Besides
his "Sacred History," he was the author of the
"History of England from the Earliest Period to
the Death of Elizabeth," consisting of several
works, each published separately and independently—namely, the "History of the Anglo-Saxons,"
"History of England in the Middle Ages," "History of the Reign of Henry VIII.," and "History
of the Reigns of Edward VI., Mary, and Elizabeth."

Besides the ordinary Superior Courts, so well
known by name to every reader, there is in existence
in Red Lion Square, at the house at the north-east
corner, an ancient Baronial Court, held under the
authority of the Sheriffs of Middlesex. "It is held
monthly" (says the Gentleman's Magazine in 1829)
"before the Sheriff or his deputy. Its power in
judgment is as great as that of the present Courts
at Westminster. It is more expeditious and less
expensive; persons seeking to recover debts may
do so to any amount at the trifling expense of only
six or seven pounds. Nor is it confined to actions
of account; it extends to detenue, trover, scandal,
&c., and personal service of process is unnecessary.
This Court was instituted," adds the writer, "by
King Alfred on dividing the kingdom into shires,
and subsequently continued and sanctioned by
Canute the Dane, by William the Conqueror, and
various statutes, including Magna Charta; and is
treated upon by several eminent legal authorities,
as Judge Hale, Judge Lambert, and many others."

The author of "A Tour through Great Britain"
says, "This present year, 1737, an Act was passed
for beautifying Red Lyon Square, which had run
much to decay." Though the square has at this
time a decayed aspect, there is a picturesqueness
and a touch of sentiment about it not to be found
in squares of a higher grade through which we have
passed. The variety of the houses, dilapidated and
disfigured as some of them are, is more interesting
than the even respectability of continuous brick
walls and unbroken roofs. Besides the old Sheriff's
Court, mentioned above, several other houses in
this square are, or have been, devoted to public and
charitable purposes. Here, for instance, is the
London Infirmary for Diseases of the Legs, Ulcers,
&c., which was instituted in 1857, under the
auspices of Miss Florence Nightingale. It is said
to be the only infirmary of the kind in the United
Kingdom where patients suffering from these
painful and tedious maladies are received, and it is
dependent entirely on voluntary support. The
value and importance of this institution is shown
by the increased number of patients not only from
London and the suburbs, but likewise from various
parts of England; the average attendance throughout the year amounting to upwards of 28,000.

The whole of the square, having long since been
deserted by the families who used to inhabit it,
has become quite a warren, so to speak, of
charitable societies, which we have no room to
enumerate in detail.

Milton at two different periods of his life was a
resident in this immediate neighbourhood, and on
both occasions he occupied houses looking upon
the green fields. The first time that he resided
here was in 1647, when his house "opened backwards into Lincoln's Inn Fields," where it was that
he principally employed himself in writing his
virulent tirades against monarchy and Charles I.
The second occasion of his residing here was
after the Restoration, when we are told the front
of his humble dwelling looked into Red Lion
Fields, the site of the present Red Lion Square.

To the south of Red Lion Square, and parallel
to it, half way between the square and Holborn,
and separating Dean and Leigh Streets, is Eagle
Street. Here was born Martin Van Butchell, the
eccentric quack doctor and dentist, of whom we
have already spoken in our account of Mount
Street, Grosvenor Square. (fn. 3)

At the south-west corner of the square is Fisher
Street, leading into Kingsgate Street, which opens
into Holborn. Hatton, in 1708, says that Kingsgate Street was "so called because the king used
to go this way to New Market." He adds, "Some
call the easterly end of this street Theobald's
Road." This street would seem to have witnessed one royal misadventure at the least; for
under date 8th of March, 1668–9, Pepys writes
in his "Diary:"—"To Whitehall, from whence
the King and the Duke of York went by three
in the morning, and had the misfortune to be
overset with the Duke of York, the Duke of Monmouth, and the Prince [Rupert], at the King's
Gate, in Holborne; and the king all dirt, but no
hurt. How it came to pass I know not, but only
it was dark, and the torches did not, they say, light
the coach as they should."

Between Kingsgate and Dean Streets, extending
back into Eagle Street, and with their principal
entrance facing Holborn, are the extensive premises
of Messrs. Day and Martin, the well-known blacking manufacturers. Mr. Charles Day, the founder
of this establishment, died in 1836, having made a
huge fortune. He had for many years before his
death been totally blind, and—apparently touched
by that "fellow-feeling" which "makes us wondrous kind"—in his will he directed that £100,000
should be devoted to the establishment of a charity,
to be called the "Poor Blind Man's Friend." This
institution, as we have already seen, has its offices
in Savile Row.

A short distance eastward, between Dean Street
and Red Lion Street, is a building which has undergone a variety of uses and vicissitudes. It was
erected about the year 1862 as a horse and carriage
repository, but the speculation was anything but
successful, and in a short time collapsed. The
building, which covers a large space of ground,
and has an entrance in Holborn, was afterwards
converted into a theatre—called first the National,
and afterwards the Holborn Amphitheatre—with
stage for dramatic representations, and a circus for
equestrian performances. Occasionally musical
entertainments were given here; but, notwithstanding the attractions put forth, the theatre never
appeared to become popular, and in the course of a
very few years its career as such came to an end.

Red Lion Street, like the Square—as already
stated—was so called after the "Red Lion Inn."
On the wall of the building at the south-west
corner, a public-house called the "Red Lion," is a
block of wood let in, with the date "1611." This
street—and, indeed, the whole neighbourhood of
Red Lion Square, if we may judge by stray allusions in the "London Spy"—would appear to have
borne no very high reputation for morality in the
reigns of the first and second Georges. Nor does
it appear to have been very safe for pedestrians.
For instance, in 1760 an apothecary was attacked
in Red Lion Street by two ruffians with firearms,
who carried him off by force to "Black Mary's
Hole."

We gather from King's "Anecdotes of his own
Times," that this street was formerly noted for its
modellers and dealers in plaster casts, many of
whom still linger in the neighbourhood of Gray's
Inn Lane and Hatton Garden. Speaking of the
Pretender's visit to London, the author says, "He
came one evening to my lodgings and drank tea
with me; my servant, after he was gone, said to
me that he thought my new visitor very like Prince
Charles. 'Why,' said I, 'have you ever seen
Prince Charles?' 'No, sir,' replied the fellow;
'but this gentleman, whoever he may be, exactly
resembles the busts which are sold in Red Lion
Street, and are said to be the busts of Prince
Charles.' The truth is, these busts were taken in
plaster of Paris from his face."

Theobald's Road, which runs parallel with the
north side of Red Lion Square, and separates Red
Lion Street from Lamb's Conduit Street, was so
named, says Mr. Peter Cunningham, "because it
led to Theobalds, in Hertfordshire, the favourite
hunting-seat of King James I. The king," he
adds, "on leaving Whitehall, went through the
Strand, up Drury Lane, and so on into Holborn,
Kingsgate Street, and Theobald's Road." John Le
Neve, author of "Monumenta Anglicana," lived in
this road at the time of the publication of that
work (1717–19), and here he advertised that his
book might be bought.

A conduit, founded by one William Lamb, a
gentleman of the Chapel Royal under Henry VIII.,
gave its name to Lamb's Conduit Street. Lamb, it
is stated, here caused several springs to be so connected as to form a head of water, which was conveyed by a leaden pipe, about 2,000 yards in
length, to Snow Hill, where he rebuilt a conduit,
which had long been in a ruinous state and disused. He is said to have expended a very large
sum of money upon these structures, and thus, by
his benevolent exertions, conferred an important
advantage upon a very populous neighbourhood.
"Moreover," as we learn from Stow's "Summary,"
"he gave to poor women, such as were willing to
take pains, 120 pails therewith to carry and serve
water." His benefactions for other purposes were
also numerous. He was buried in St. Faith's
Church, and upon his tomb was inscribed an
epitaph in the quaint punning language of the
time.

Lamb's Conduit was rebuilt in 1667 from a
design by Sir Christopher Wren, and at the expense
of Sir Thomas Daws. It was taken down in 1746.
Most of the City conduits, it has been remarked,
were destroyed by the Great Fire in 1666, and the
rest, it is darkly hinted, were swept quietly away in
order to force the citizens to have the water of the
New River laid on to their houses.

The fields around Lamb's Conduit, a century ago,
formed a favourite promenade for the inhabitants
of St. Andrew's, Holborn, and St. Giles's. An
old English "Herbal," speaking of winter rocket,
or cresses, says: "It groweth of its own accord in
gardens and fields, by the way-side in divers places,
and particularly in the next pasture to the Conduit
Head, behind Gray's Inn, that brings water to
Mr. Lamb's Conduit, in Holborn."

A correspondent in Notes and Queries (April,
1857) says: "About sixty years since I was travelling from the West of England in one of the old
stage-coaches of that day, and my fellow-travellers
were an octogenarian clergyman and his daughter.
In speaking of the then increasing size of London,
the old gentleman said that, when he was a boy,
and recovering from an attack of small-pox, he was
sent into the country to a row of houses standing
on the west side of the upper part of the present
Lamb's Conduit Street; that all the space before
him was open fields; that a streamlet of water ran
under his window; and he saw a man snipe-shooting, who sprang a snipe near to the house, and shot
it. He further said, that he once stated the fact to
an old nobleman (whose name he mentioned, but
I have forgotten it), and he replied: 'Well! when
I was a young man, I sprang a brace of partridges
where Grosvenor House now stands, and bagged
one of them.' I have myself seen a pump reputed
to be erected on the Conduit Head, and standing
against the corner house of a small turning out of
Lamb's Conduit Street, on the right-hand side as
you go towards the Foundling, and nearly at the
upper end of the street."

On the west side of Lamb's Conduit Street are
two or three short streets, which, from the substantial appearance of the houses, would seem to
have been formerly the abode of some of the
higher classes of society. One of these is Harpur
Street, which runs in a line with Theobald's Road,
on the north side of Red Lion Square. It was so
named after Sir William Harpur, who was Lord
Mayor of London in 1562.

Lamb's Conduit Street is crossed by Ormond
Street, and terminated at its northern end by
Guilford Street. On the east side of the street,
and running parallel between it and Gray's Inn
Road, are Milman, Doughty, Great James, and
John Streets, together with two or three others of
little or no importance. In Milman Street, at
the house of a friend, on the 21st of May, 1810,
died the Chevalier D'Eon, some time equerry to
Louis XV., and also Ambassador at the Court
of St. James's. During his residence in England,
doubts arose respecting his sex, and wagers to
a large amount were laid thereon, one of which
terminated in a trial before Lord Mansfield.
There the witnesses declared that the Chevalier
was a woman concealed in man's clothes; and no
attempt being made to contradict their evidence,
a verdict was given for the plaintiff for the recovery of the wager. After the trial, D'Eon put
on female attire, which he continued to wear till
his decease, when all doubts regarding his sex
were at once set at rest, an examination of the
body being made in the presence of several distinguished personages. From the notice of his
death in the Gentleman's Magazine we learn that in
private life the Chevalier was always understood to
have been extremely amiable; his natural abilities
were great, and his acquirements most numerous.
The story which mixed up the name of the Chevalier D'Eon in an intrigue with Queen Charlotte in
the early part of her married life, is shown by Mr.
W. J. Thoms to be a pure invention of a French
scandal-monger, M. Gaillardet.

In Milman Street Bellingham was lodging when,
in 1812, he assassinated Mr. Perceval in the lobby
of the House of Commons.

In Doughty Street lived Charles Dickens in the
earlier days of his first achieved popularity, when
as yet he was only "Boz" to the public. Whilst
here he wrote, in a letter to a friend, "I always
pay my taxes when they 'won't' wait any longer,
in order to get a bad name in the parish, and so
to escape all 'honours.'" Here was a touch of
character; though Mr. Forster tells us that in after
life, respectability following in the wake of success,
he followed quite a different course, and paid his
taxes not only regularly but punctually.

Extending from Doughty Street to King's Road,
which forms the northern boundary of Gray's Inn,
is a broad and well-built thoroughfare, called John
Street. On the west side of the street is the Baptist
chapel where the Hon. and Rev. Baptist Noel
preached to crowded congregations, after his secession from the Established Church in 1848. He
had previously been for several years the minister
of the Episcopal Chapel of St. John, which stood in
Chapel Street, Great James Street, at the north end
of Bedford Row. The old chapel, which was pulled
down soon after Mr. Noel left it, was a plain
square brick building, and may be described as
having been for half a century the head-quarters
of fashionable Evangelicalism, for the string of
carriages waiting at its doors about one o'clock on
Sundays sometimes extended the entire length of
the street. In the early part of the present century
the minister of St. John's Chapel was the Rev.
Daniel Wilson, afterwards vicar of Islington, and
eventually Bishop of Calcutta.

In the rear of Gray's Inn, as we learn from John
Timbs, there was formerly a cockpit, which, doubtless, was frequented by the young law-students.
The place is still kept in remembrance by Little
Cockpit Yard, in the King's Road, close by Great
James Street.

The old "Black Bull," in Gray's Inn Lane, of
which we give a view on page 546, was a good
specimen of the old-fashioned galleried yard.

Bedford Row, which lies between Red Lion
Street and Gray's Inn, is a fine specimen of a broad
thoroughfare of the early part of the eighteenth
century, and must have been a pleasant residence
when all to the north was open country as far as
Hampstead and Highgate. It does not derive its
name, as might be imagined, from the Russell
family, but from the town of Bedford, to which—his native place—Sir William Harper, Lord Mayor
of London in 1562, bequeathed the land on
which it stands for the foundation of a school
and other local charities.

The houses in Bedford Row are now nearly all
cut up into chambers and occupied by solicitors.
No. 12 was for many years the head-quarters of the
Entomological Society. This society was organised
in 1833, and the first general meeting of its members
was held in the following year, with the Rev. W.
Kirby, the "father of British entomology," as its
president. Periodical meetings were at first held,
at which memoirs were received and read, experiments for the destruction of noxious insects suggested, communications made, and objects exhibited. A collection of insects was also formed,
together with a library of books of reference.
The valuable collections of Mr. Kirby were presented to the society at its commencement. In
1875, they removed to Chandos Street, Cavendish
Square.

At the south end of Bedford Row is Bedford
Street, which runs westward into Red Lion Street,
and is connected with High Holborn by three or
four narrow streets and courts. One of these,
Featherstone Buildings, Mr. Cunningham tells us,
was so called from Cuthbert Featherstone, Gentleman Usher and Crier of the King's Bench, who
died in 1615. A stone let into the wall is inscribed
with the name of the passage, and the date is
1724. The next, Hand Court, is so called from
the "Hand-in-Hand" Tavern, which stands at the
corner in Holborn. The "Hand-in-Hand" in
former days was not only a favourite public-house
sign, but also one of the usual signs of the marriagemongers in Fleet Street; and it now figures as the
name of one of the London Fire Insurance Offices.
Brownlow Street was named after Sir John Brownlow, a parishioner of St. Giles's (fn. 4) in the reign of
Charles II. Eastward of this street is the Duke's
Theatre, which occupies a plot of ground abutting
on Bedford Row and the western boundary of
Gray's Inn, formerly used as a yard for mail-carts
and post-office omnibuses. It was at first opened
about 1866, as the Holborn Theatre, by Mr. Sefton
Parry, and it has since undergone many changes in
style and management. Its name was subsequently altered to "The Mirror," which in turn
has been changed to the "Duke's."

OLD HOUSES IN HOLBORN.

Warwick Court, close by the above theatre, was
probably so named after the old Earls of Warwick,
whose mansion, Warwick House, already mentioned in our account of the neighbourhood of
Holborn, (fn. 5) stood at a short distance eastward of
Gray's Inn Lane. Passing up this court, we find
ourselves at the back gate of Gray's Inn, where
we stop our journeyings eastward, not wishing to
enter upon ground already traversed.